Drowning
by Macy12
Summary: tw-panic attacks Spoilers through Motel California - Stiles was all too familiar with what it felt like to not be able to breathe.


**This is just a short drabble that doesn't really have a plot but I felt like writing something Teen Wolf cause I recently became OBSESSED with it (mostly obsessed with Stiles but shhh) and I kinda wanted to vent about panic attacks cause they're not fun, not at all. So... this happened**  
**Enjoy 3**

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Stiles was all too familiar with what it felt like to not be able to breathe. He had felt like he was drowning while he watched everyone around him keep breathing. He knew what it was like for his adrenaline to shoot into overdrive, and for his brain to jump from thought to thought in less than a second. It felt like dying, and sometimes the panic attacks got so bad he would have been ok with dying in that moment.

He was 14 when they stopped, but now they'd come back and come back with a vengeance. It started after that night in the school, and he'd been so good at hiding it. Since they came mostly at night after he'd woken up from a nightmare he would just open his window for some fresh air and either lie in his bed or pace the floor until it subsided, all while being quiet enough to not wake his dad.

Then after the "Matt Incident" it got worse. It wasn't just at night anymore, and it was only a couple days before his dad knew. They'd been eating breakfast when an attack hit, and Stiles wasn't even sure what brought it on. It had gotten to the point where the vision of Matt hitting his dad over the head while he lay motionless on the ground, unable to do anything, would pop randomly into his head and that would trigger it. Sure enough it happened. He saw it replay clear as day inside his head and he panicked. He remembered not being able to feel his fingers, and feeling like he was breathing out of a straw. He remembered his head pounding, and every single sound echoing inside his mind. He remembered the look on his dad's face when he realized, right before he helped him walk to the couch and held him just tight enough to know he was there like he had so many times after his mom died. He remembered having to tell his dad that he'd been hiding the panic attacks and how he gently walked around Stiles like a sleeping dragon for the next few days. Not that it changed anything, they still came no matter how careful his dad was, because they weren't his fault to begin with.

What really put him over the edge was when Gerard took him. After that they were more frequent and more intense. His dad had to tell his teachers that he was allowed to leave class if an attack ever hit, even though Stiles had told him not to he still did anyways. It was something he tried not to do as much as possible but once or twice it had gotten to be too much and he had to escape into the hall, earning him quite a few concerned looks from his friends.

After the motel, his life had become a living hell. He woke up multiple times a night in a sweat from nightmares of him not being able to save his friends. Every night he watched Boyd drown and Ethan saw himself in half. He watched Scott go up in flames. Each time he woke up shaking and the panic would set in. He was living in constant fear that something would set him off again. Most of the time thought it didn't have to be anything that set him off, it would just hit him out of nowhere like a train going 1000mph. He knew his friends could tell something was off, because Scott was always asking if he slept at all last night when Stiles would drift off during every period including lunch. He knew Stiles, and he would never sleep through lunch unless there was something wrong. He constantly caught Lydia or Isaac staring at him like they were trying to solve a puzzle, the puzzle of why the kid who could never sit still no longer was talking and walked around in a constant zombified state. None of them asked though. Scott knew, deep down. He just never said anything for fear that it might trigger something.

His dad wasn't sleeping much either. Every night he stayed partially awake with one ear out incase Stiles needed him. He did most nights too, which made him even more tired the next morning, but of course he never said anything or lead on to the fact that he hadn't slept in a week. Stiles knew he was about to collapse from exhaustion and no matter how quiet he tried to force himself to be his dad always somehow heard him. He wondered if there were security cameras hidden in his room that his dad watched like a hawk every night, because somehow with every attack his dad would appear to crack the window and climb into bed next to him and wrap his arms around his son that felt so small and fragile until he stopped shaking and was breathing normally again. He would stay after he knew the panic attack had passed too, just holding Stiles until he fell asleep again, and then he would gently slide the window shut and creep back out until he had to do it again.

Maybe it was the fact that he was worried about the people he cared about worrying that made it almost impossible for the panic attacks to get any better. Maybe it was the fact that he refused to talk to anybody about it and he put up such a happy front for everybody else's sake. The anxiety medicine wasn't helping too much either. He had a restful night every once in awhile, which was a major improvement to say the least, but he still had attacks during the day and other nights. Maybe he would just have to live with it. It slowly got better after it got to the worst after his mom died. Maybe this was the final stretch. His dad was sleeping more, just because he got to the point where he physically could not hold his eyes open anymore, which made Stiles feel better and ultimately helped calm the anxiety. His dad also tried to get him to talk to the school guidance counselor which did nothing but give him another person to pretend to be fine for.

Even though it was bad, it was better than it had been, and that's all he could cling to for hope that it would stop eventually.

Because Stiles Stilinski was never the truly happy kid. He had his own inner demons to fight, and they weren't just going to go away, but he could pretend to be happy, which in a weird way did make him feel better. It made his dad and his friends feel better to see him smiling again, which made Stiles want to smile for real. So maybe he would never forget the things he'd been through, but why should he? They were things that made him a survivor, and he wasn't going out that easy.


End file.
